Portland committee debates mayor’s public-safety budget; Novick proposes police cut, boosts for emergency management

The Community and Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, May 13, spent the bulk of its meeting reviewing the mayor’s proposed budget for the public-safety service area and aired competing proposals for how to use limited general-fund dollars.

Committee members opened with technical questions about bureau budgets, grants accounting and overtime controls, then debated two amendment concepts introduced by Councilor Nick Novick. Novick proposed cutting $3 million from the Portland Police Bureau and shifting some welfare-check responses to unarmed responders, and separately proposed moving roughly $3.3 million from council office budgets to expand the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management’s (PBEM) capacity, including a 24/7 watch. No formal votes occurred at the committee meeting; the items remain under consideration during the budget process and at forthcoming work sessions.

Why it matters: the committee’s discussion laid out the tradeoffs facing Portland as it manages 1‑time versus ongoing funding, seeks to reduce overtime costs in police and fire, and weighs investments in emergency preparedness after years of staffing and funding fluctuations. Committee members pressed bureau leaders on how grants are tracked, how overtime is monitored, which calls could be reassigned to non-sworn responders, and what a modest increase in PBEM staffing would buy.

Committee members and city executives described several operational and accounting practices that underlie the proposed budget. DCA Myers (Deputy City Administrator for Public Safety) and budget staff said monthly “accounting period” meetings that include bureau leadership and the City Budget Office review overtime and personnel trends and produce projections; those meetings have been expanded to include the mayor’s office. Nathan (budget staff) told the committee the service area submitted 28 grant applications across bureaus this year and that the timing of award notifications — especially federal grants — explains much year‑to‑year variability in intergovernmental revenue. DCA Myers said a February…